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The Washington Post headline, “Black teachers flee schools, leading to concerns about diversity,” left me less concerned about “diversity” and more with why teachers — black or otherwise — would “flee.” A study by an institute funded by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) looked at nine large cities — Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — and found that the number of black teachers in each city’s public schools dropped between 2002 and 2012. The story’s lead then informed readers that this was “raising questions about whether those school systems...

A new report claims the United States’ education system is seeing minority teachers quitting at an alarming rate. Experts cited by the Washington Post claim it is possible a history of racism and income disparity might explain why some black teachers are quitting their jobs, but others believe the new standardized curriculum like Common Core and the inability to apply child discipline may have frustrated these teachers.

As the new school year begins, you might like to be updated on some school happenings that will no doubt be repeated this academic year. After this update, I have some questions one might ask the black leadership. The ongoing and escalating assault on primary- and secondary-school teachers is not a pretty sight. Holly Houston is a post-traumatic stress specialist. She counsels teachers in Chicago public schools and reported, "Of the teachers that I have counseled over the years who have been assaulted, 100 percent of them have satisfied diagnostic criteria for PTSD." It's not just big-city schoolteachers traumatized. Dr....

Emails released by the State Department Monday night show that the leader of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation's top unions, had direct access to the office of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Several emails show that requests from Tina Flournoy, union President Randi Weingarten's assistant at the time, for private meetings or phone calls were given priority by Clinton. For example, in a July 20, 2010, message to Clinton's private account "HDR22@clintonemail.com," Flournoy, using her American Federation of Teachers address, said: "Have a little issue I would like to discuss with you over the phone. Not...

Angry parents sending death threats on social media to their children's teachers, shocking survey reveals [ Full title ]. Parents are sending death threats to their children's teachers on social media, a shocking new survey has revealed. Three out of four teachers in in the U.K. have said parents’ behavior toward them has become more obnoxious in the last five years. The poll of 796 teachers in England and Wales also revealed that the parents of younger pupils tend to be more verbally aggressive to teachers. And teachers have been subjected to nasty comments about their appearance, weight and sexuality...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — An elementary school teacher who was allowed to keep his job despite being late for work 111 times in two years said Friday that breakfast is to blame for his tardiness. "I have a bad habit of eating breakfast in the morning, and I lost track of time," 15-year veteran teacher Arnold Anderson told The Associated Press. In a decision filed Aug. 19, an arbitrator in New Jersey rejected an attempt by the Roosevelt Elementary School in New Brunswick to fire Anderson from his $90,000-a-year job, saying he was entitled to progressive discipline.

Lincoln-Way choice to build two schools was questioned at the time Gregory Pratt Lincoln-Way 210 officials had big plans for the school district's future in 2005 — booming population growth would fuel new success. Ten years and a $225 million referendum to build two schools later, District 210 is on the state's financial watch list and needs to close one of its four schools to try and make ends meet. District officials defend the decision to forge ahead with the construction of two schools in the late 2000s, saying they trusted enrollment figures that showed the district would have thousands...

One schoolteacher who gets paid $87,349 annually, and another who gets $80,472, were highlighted in a recent Oakland Press article complaining that teachers had to get second jobs “to make ends meet.” The article was written by a third teacher, Julia Satterthwaite, who works at the Rochester Community Schools district and is described as a "summer intern” for the newspaper. The article featured one of the author’s colleagues, Karen Malsbury, who has been teaching for 14 years. Malsbury was quoted as saying, “There is little or no room for professional growth, little opportunity to increase your personal income, no step...

Chicago Public Schools officials on Monday proposed a $5.7 billion operating budget for the upcoming school year that relies on $480 million in new funding from state government that might never come. School leaders conceded the spending plan contains a mix of “unsustainable” borrowing and limited classroom cuts that they say they must begrudgingly make because of a $676 million payment for teacher pensions that’s due at the end of the school year. There also are numerous fiscal wild cards in the mix, including budget adjustments that might ensue should CPS reach an agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union on...

In urban centers around the country, rental prices are soaring. Cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City routinely report double-digit increases that make it nearly impossible for residents to make ends meet. But it’s not just dwellers of those metropolitan areas who are having a hard time paying the rent. According to a report out this week from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, more than half of renters in America are considered to be financially burdened by their rent, meaning that they spend more than 30 percent of their income just on where they live. High...

SOROS NAILED: Liberal Sugar Daddy George Soros May Face A ‘Monster’ Named, “Tax Evasion.” Which will Eat Away his Political Power. [ Full title]. George Soros is one of the left’s most powerful money men. In January of this year, Western Journalism reported on the millions of dollars that liberal billionaire George Soros and his politically involved foundations gave to help various groups of Ferguson protesters. “Buses of activists from a litany of organizations — all funded in part by Mr. Soros” showed up in the Missouri city scorched by riots related to the police-involved death of Michael Brown. Soros,...

The principal of an innovative West Harlem public school killed herself the day after her students took the state Common Core exams — which were later tossed out because she cheated ... Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, 49, of Teachers College Community School, jumped in front of a B train in the 135th Street station ... She was pulled out from under the train and taken to Harlem Hospital, where she died eight days later. The city Medical Examiner’s Office ruled it a suicide. The leap came at 9:20 a.m., less than 24 hours after her 47 third-graders wrapped up three days sweating...

An American kindergarten teacher who is the mother of twins was stabbed to death in the bathroom of an Abu Dhabi shopping mall by a robed figure dubbed the "Reem Island Ghost," police said Wednesday. The teacher was identified by her family as Ibolya Ryan. The attack comes just weeks after the U.S. embassies in the Middle East warned citizens of an anonymous posting on a jihadist website encouraging attacks against teachers at American schools in the Middle East.

During U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech on Wednesday regarding a new government initiative to bring high speed internet access to low-income groups, the topic of South Korea’s education system came up. “In South Korea they pay their teachers the way they pay their doctors,” he said in front of an audience at Durant High School in Durant, Okla. “They consider education to be at the highest wrung of the professions.” The reason it came up at all had to do with South Korea’s widespread high speed internet access especially in the city’s capital of Seoul. Obama voiced a similar statement...

City officials are pushing property-tax hikes, sales-tax hikes, and even a commuter tax and financial-transaction tax. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s wish for a $474 million sales-tax increase to help pay for the county’s growing pension debt has been granted. The hike pushes the sales-tax rate back up to 10.25 percent in Chicago – the same as it was when Preckwinkle took office in 2010. And that’s not the only new tax residents have to face. Preckwinkle is just the latest local leader to usher in a tax increase. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel created a new tax earlier this...

WASHINGTON — Furious American Federation of Teachers members are demanding the union withdraw its endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling it premature and undemocratic. “There was no internal discussion. Zero. Zip,” said Steve Conn, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. “This is wrong and something needs to be done.” The 45-member AFT executive board voted Saturday to back Clinton despite an AFL-CIO request to wait until July when the presidential field is more set.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has won the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers. It's the first major labor union to make an endorsement in the 2016 presidential campaign. The president of the union, Randi Weingarten, says in a statement Saturday that Clinton is the "champion working families need in the White House." The endorsement has been widely expected....

Schools in St. Paul and Cannon Falls threw out dozens of Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments results this spring because of cheating by teachers assigned to monitor the standardized tests, according to state Department of Education reports. At St. Paul's Linwood Monroe, the department found, 21 seventh-graders had their math scores invalidated after the exam proctor gave students "direct prompting and direction on test items while they took the test." The teacher was placed on administrative leave, but the district wouldn't comment on any further discipline. In Cannon Falls, the school district tossed the scores of 26 fifth-graders after a teacher admitted...

Security forces have arrested six Israeli Beduin men from the Negev town of Houra, four of whom work as school teachers, for allegedly supporting the Islamic State terrorist organization. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Monday that the men were arrested over the past two months. They allegedly took part in secret meetings in which they discussed Islamic State doctrine, and spread the group's propaganda among their family members and associates. Some of the suspects planned to join the ranks Islamic State in Syria. Those who worked as teachers at schools in the Negev used their positions to spread...

BARNEGAT, N.J. – Teachers unions during the past decade have known their share of scandal. Add the case of Wayne Wedderman Jr. to the list. This Monday, June 29, Wedderman, treasurer of the Barnegat Education Association, pleaded guilty in Ocean County, New Jersey Superior Court to theft from the union. He had been arrested last November for stealing roughly a combined $23,000 from two union accounts in the wake of a county probe begun the previous month. A grand jury in February subsequently indicted Wedderman on two counts of thefts and one count of computer theft. Sentencing is scheduled for...